Intension
by Ryne42
Summary: "Sometimes I feel the weight of my destiny crushing me." And never more so than after talking to the druids, who may understand about his magic, but still do not understand Merlin any more than the rest of the world.
1. Chapter 1

**Category:** Gen (canon)  
**Characters/Pairings:** Merlin, Iseldir, various druids  
**Rating/Warnings:** K+ (minor swearing) *minor spoilers for series 5 if you squint*  
**Notes:** In the process of severely neglecting the _enormous_ amounts of work that I have to get done, I sat down to write a drabble and ended up producing another oneshot. Whoops. The idea came to me after watching 5x01. You'll know the scene when you see it.

* * *

Merlin didn't know what it was that made him seek out the druid camp — it wasn't the urgent press of destiny, because for once, Camelot was calm. Perhaps it was the crushing weight of the frustration of living a lie, of being amongst people who looked at him all day long but never _saw_ him, but one evening Merlin had felt overwhelmingly stifled, and had left Camelot without a word of notice to anyone.

Iseldir had met him on the edge of the forest as if they had made some sort of arrangement, and they arrived back at the campsite to find that dinner was almost prepared. The entire camp seemed jittery, as if something was putting them on edge; and it took Merlin a few moments of shy glances and excited mutterings behind his back to realize that it was his presence, and once again he felt the burden of not belonging.

The feeling remained even as they were sitting around the fire, clutching makeshift bowls and eating an astonishingly delicious stew — although anything would taste delicious after years of eating Gaius' food and potions. He chuckled quietly at the thought, but it died quickly when he heard whispers racing around the fire. He had felt the weight of their eyes throughout dinner, but now he turned to Iseldir, who was sitting next to him, and whispered, "Why are they staring?"

"They are curious about you," Iseldir replied calmly. "There's so much they don't know. They know your future—"

"Wish someone would tell _me_. Tell me _honestly_," Merlin muttered bitterly.

"—but they don't know your past or present."

"They can ask. I'll answer," he said after a pause, because anything was better than the awkward, hushed atmosphere that had prevailed thus far.

It was like a dam breaking. Questions flooded in — what was his first memory of performing magic? What was the most dangerous thing he'd done to protect the king? Was it true that he'd actually _hatched_ the dragon egg they'd helped him find? The questions just kept coming and coming, and slowly the druids stopped being so wary and instead leaned forward eagerly, eyeing him with hunger and hope. And Merlin found himself becoming more comfortable as well, because it was so nice to talk for once, and now it did not feel as if he were playing a double role, not here amongst his people. Then—

"Tell us about your childhood, Emrys," someone requested.

—and for a moment Merlin had to look away, because this would not be a story about Emrys — this would be about Merlin, a boy from Ealdor, a boy who did not exist in their minds, and his double life came back full-force in a way he'd never felt it before. They would not want to hear about how harsh and dull the life of a farmer was; how difficult the winters were, with the bitter cold and the fear of starvation; how lonely it was to grow up in a place where he could never be himself among those he considered family. They would not want to hear about his human sufferings because they believed him to be above them.

And so he chose an innocent story, one with magic because it was expected; but also one with simplicity, because it hinted that there was a person drowning beneath their hopes.

"When I was young, a group of performers came through my village," he began, and allowed the details of the memory to wash over him. "They put on a show for us in exchange for food and shelter, and I remember — me and Will would hardly leave the juggler alone until he showed us how he did it. And after they left, we spent _ages_ practicing with anything we could get our hands on — rocks, turnips, eggs... Oh, the _eggs_," Merlin said with a laugh.

"We stole eggs from the henhouse at first, but we made _such_ a mess — we were terrible at it then, and everyone was _furious_ — so after that I would just create them, y'know, with magic, only Will didn't know that — _couldn't_ know that — so he just thought I'd gotten really good at sneaking into the coop, and he was always trying to outdo me and he didn't understand why he _always_ got caught and I never did. And after he found out about my magic, oh, he was _furious_. Nearly drowned me, he did, for all the beatings he'd gotten, and after that I had to be careful because he'd be as like to throw my eggs at me as juggle them, the _traitor_."

He had hardly let himself think about Will since he died, and for some reason the pain seemed less sharp, softened as it was by the glow of happy memory. It was nice to think of a simpler time, before destiny had touched his life, when he was just Merlin and Emrys was still just a name in a legend; and even though he was remembering now, in front of a crowd with his thoughts laid bare, for a moment the ache of _loneliness_ went away, and he smiled as if for the first time in ages.

Then someone across the fire said hoarsely, "I — I'm sorry, Emrys, but did you say that you _created_ eggs?"

This was not the reaction he had expected, and it was so jarring that all Merlin could do was blink owlishly at him for a few seconds before replying, "Er — yeah, loads of times."

"And were they real?" said the same druid.

"What do you mean?" asked Merlin, confused.

And it was then that Iseldir spoke up, eyeing him intently, and suddenly Merlin felt that he was undergoing some sort of test. "He means, did the eggs you created ever hatch? What did you do with them?"

"Uh," Merlin said, taken aback. "Well, the ones we didn't drop I would usually take to my mother, or put in the coop with the hens. We always needed more food. And I suppose _some_ of them must've hatched, I never really kept track—"

"What incantation did you use?" a woman burst out, who then flushed and partially hid behind her shawl when Merlin looked at her.

"I didn't — I never learned any incantations until I moved to Camelot," he said, just as yet another druid asked, "How old were you?" And Merlin looked around to see all of them staring at him with the same shy curiosity that they had shown when he had first arrived, and none of the familiarity that they had been showing since.

"I — eight summers? Nine? What does it—"

An astonished murmur rippled around the camp, and even Iseldir's usually calm expression had changed to awe. "Emrys," he said, and for one horrible moment Merlin thought he was going to bow; instead he merely stared at him for a few more seconds before continuing, "Emrys, you created _life_. Even at a such a young age you harnessed a power that none of us could ever dream of. Destiny truly has had you marked for greatness since birth."

And of all the things he could have said, that was the worst.

"They're just _eggs_," Merlin choked out, horrified, furious, _betrayed_, because that meant that there was not a moment in his life in which destiny had not meddled, not even the ones where his best friend egged him in the face and yelled, 'Serves you right, you wanker,' then sat on him and rubbed the yolk into his hair. Destiny had taken that friend, it had taken his present and his future, and now it had tainted even his past, and he had nothing left for himself, not even his memories.

"Emrys?" Iseldir said, stepping forward in concern, but Merlin held up a hand, because he knew that Iseldir would never understand why that had gutted him so thoroughly. He would never understand, none of the druids would, because they had never expected anything else from him.

Was this what it meant to be a legend?

"Yes," he said wearily, and bowed his head. "I suppose it is."

It was, he supposed, all he'd ever been.


	2. Chapter 2

**Category:** Gen (canon)  
**Characters/Pairings:** Merlin, Iseldir, various druids  
**Rating/Warnings:** K+, series 5 spoilers.  
**Summary:** Merlin confesses his failure. Set after 5x05, The Disir.

* * *

As soon as he was certain that he would not be missed, Merlin crept past the guard at the east gate and headed back into the woods. He had extracted a promise from Gaius that he would not tell Arthur that he was at the tavern while he was missing, but even that old joke could not make him laugh as it used to. Instead he felt the hollow ache of where his humor used to be, before all of this — before Emrys, before the druids' impossible expectations, before he made an utter ruin out of everything.

Iseldir was waiting for him, just like last time, and once again he regarded Merlin with grey-eyed impassivity. Merlin stood on the edge of the clearing, eyes downcast, and couldn't bring himself to move any closer.

"I have failed you."

The words fell out of him like stones, heavy and crushing, and Merlin bent under the weight of them. He dropped to his knees, head bowed, and could not take comfort even in the the magic of the leaves and of the earth, because now he thought only of the sacred woods, where he had spoken as openly as he had ever dared about his gift, only to have it condemned by his own words minutes later. It seemed that all his work had paid off too well, but not in the way he had intended — because Arthur had come to rely on him, only him, and it was Merlin's own undoing.

"Emrys?" Iseldir said when no more words were forthcoming, and for a moment Merlin thought that it would not be so bad to speak of his failure to one man, to pour out all his loneliness and insecurities to someone who never knew he had any — and perhaps the gods had smiled on him for once in his life by sending Iseldir alone, because then none of the others need know of what Emrys had done for them.

He took a shuddering breath and raised his head to confess, and instead found the entire druid camp surrounding him. Of course the gods would not smile on him — not after what he'd done. He had not heard them approach — perhaps it was tradition that made them so silent in the forest, but to him it seemed more likely that it was the long years of being hunted like animals, and that only served to remind him that he had condemned them to that fate once more. And now they would all be present for the destruction of Emrys, because now he had to show them once and for all that he was human and fallible and immeasurably breakable.

"I have turned Arthur against magic forever," he blurted out, eyes tightly shut; he couldn't bear to see their faces as he pulled their hope out from under them. "I had the chance to — to change his mind, _permanently_, and instead I only hardened his heart further."

"I'm sure you did all you could," Iseldir said calmly.

"No," Merlin said harshly. "No, I didn't. I have in the past, but it comes to ruin every time. And this time — he asked me if he had been wrong to condemn magic, if perhaps it wasn't as evil as he had been taught, and I told him that there was no place for it in Camelot. And now the Disir have cast judgement upon him, and he will die, and I have failed."

He did not fill the silence that followed with an explanation that it had been a choice between his own freedom and Arthur's life, because of course he would choose Arthur's life, he always would, even though it ripped him apart while doing so. But he had forgotten, in the agony of the moment, that was not just his freedom that he had given up, and now — now he fully realized how unworthy he was, because even though he felt the burden of these people's hopes, he would always make the same choice.

And what did that say of him, that he would put one man above all the rest? Was he selfish, denying freedom to those who depended on him in order to save the most important person in his life? The things he would do for Arthur — the lengths to which he would go to save his life — used to frighten him, because he had never imagined that he could become so dangerously devoted to one man that he would risk his dignity, his innocence, his happiness; but now that they were gone Arthur was all he had left, and so he would protect him at all costs.

But it was one thing to sacrifice himself, and another one entirely to sacrifice those who had already lost so much. And this, more than anything, had brought Merlin to despair.

"I'm sure you had your reasons," Iseldir said softly, and Merlin broke apart in the face of their trust as even now they refused to blame him. Even now they had faith in him — not in his infallibility, but in his ability to fix what he had broken. Except Arthur's trust in magic had never been whole; it had never been more than a gossamer thread, beautiful and frail as a butterfly's wing, and Merlin had torn it in two time and time again. He had been entrusted to bring magic back to the land, and yet all he had done was inspire hatred and distrust of it in the one man who had the power to do so.

They deserved someone better.

"Please," he whispered. "Let me go."

But they would not absolve him; they would not free him from the fate that he was so unworthy to bring to fruition. "Emrys," Iseldir said sharply, a rare hint of emotion. "There is no escaping your destiny. You are to bring about the land of Albion, and only you can accomplish this." And still the others stood watching him, silent and unreadable, and Merlin did not speak.

"There is only you, Emrys," Iseldir said, much more gently. "And you will find a way. The path ahead is dark and full of shadows, but you will bring the light. You must. So do not give in to despair, Emrys, for we have been living in darkness for far too long." Then he was gone, melted into the gloom of the forest; as the others followed him, Merlin could feel the phantom of a touch and hear the whisper of _Emrys_.

Emrys. His name, forevermore, no matter how much he wished to be rid of it.

And so, alone in the darkness, he forced himself to his feet and returned to his king.


End file.
